At Politico Magazine, retired Foreign Service officer James Bruno notes that President Barack Obama, Mr. Googoo in Chief, has appointed a higher percentage of “cringeworthy” political hacks as ambassadors than his not terribly principled predecessors. While previous presidents filled about 35% of our embassies abroad with political pals of varied eminence, Obama has kicked it up to more than 50%.
Not only that, under President Obama, the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General has discontinued its previous practice of issuing “report cards” on the state of our embassies abroad. This probably had nothing to do with a “Report of Inspection” issued in January 2011 on the U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg, which claimed that the embassy staff was in a state of “dysfunction” thanks to the dysfunctioning of Seattle venture capitalist/drama queen Cynthia Stroum, who resigned shortly after the report was released.
Update
Henri Barkey, professor of international relations at Lehigh University, piles on here.
